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Gerar - meaning lodging-place - was a Philistine town and district in what is today south-central Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
. Archaeological evidence points to the town having come into existence with the arrival of the Philistines at around 1200 BCE and having been little more than a village until 800-700 BCE.

Biblically, the town features in two of the three wife-sister narratives
Wife-sister narratives in Genesis

There are three wife-sister narratives in Genesis, part of the Torah, all of which are strikingly similar. At the core of each is the tale of a Biblical Patriarch, who has come to be in the land of a powerful foreign overlord that has mistaken the Patriarch's wife to be the Patriarch's sister, and consequently has attempted to wed her himself...
 in Genesis
Genesis

Genesis or Breishit is the first book of the Bible used by Judaism and Christianity, and the first of five books of the Pentateuch or Torah....
. The Bible records that Abraham
Abraham

Abraham is a man featured in the Book of Genesis and an important figure in several monotheistic religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam traditions regard him as the founding Patriarchs of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples....
 and Isaac
Isaac

According to the Hebrew Bible, Isaac The New Testament contains few references to Isaac. The Early Christianity views Abraham's willingness to follow God's command to Binding of Isaac as an example of faith and obedience....
 each stayed at Gerar, near what became Beersheba
Beersheba

Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 186,100....
, and that each passed their wife off as their sister, leading to romantic complications involving Gerar's Philistine king, Abimelech
Abimelech

Abimelech or Avimelech was a common name of the Philistine monarch.Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis....
.






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Gerar - meaning lodging-place - was a Philistine town and district in what is today south-central Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
. Archaeological evidence points to the town having come into existence with the arrival of the Philistines at around 1200 BCE and having been little more than a village until 800-700 BCE.

Biblically, the town features in two of the three wife-sister narratives
Wife-sister narratives in Genesis

There are three wife-sister narratives in Genesis, part of the Torah, all of which are strikingly similar. At the core of each is the tale of a Biblical Patriarch, who has come to be in the land of a powerful foreign overlord that has mistaken the Patriarch's wife to be the Patriarch's sister, and consequently has attempted to wed her himself...
 in Genesis
Genesis

Genesis or Breishit is the first book of the Bible used by Judaism and Christianity, and the first of five books of the Pentateuch or Torah....
. The Bible records that Abraham
Abraham

Abraham is a man featured in the Book of Genesis and an important figure in several monotheistic religions. Judaism, Christianity and Islam traditions regard him as the founding Patriarchs of the Israelites, Ishmaelites and Edomite peoples....
 and Isaac
Isaac

According to the Hebrew Bible, Isaac The New Testament contains few references to Isaac. The Early Christianity views Abraham's willingness to follow God's command to Binding of Isaac as an example of faith and obedience....
 each stayed at Gerar, near what became Beersheba
Beersheba

Beersheba is the largest city in the Negev desert of southern Israel. Often referred to as the "Capital of the Negev", it is the seventh-largest city in Israel with a population of 186,100....
, and that each passed their wife off as their sister, leading to romantic complications involving Gerar's Philistine king, Abimelech
Abimelech

Abimelech or Avimelech was a common name of the Philistine monarch.Abimelech was most prominently the name of a king of Gerar who is mentioned in two of the three wife-sister narratives in Genesis....
. ( , and ) The Haggada identifies the two references to Abimelech as to separate people, the second being the first Abimelech's son, and that his original name was Benmelech (son of the King) but changed his name to his father's, which clearly evidences that the name means "my father is the king". Most estimates place the biblical story to near 2000 BCE.

The biblical valley of Gerar is probably the modern Wadi el-Jerdr.